Appeasement

I think all of us have had many situations in which appeasement has definitely been the reason that things don't get out of hand. There obviously is a line to draw in certain situations, like when things get personal or when someone says something they know that they should not have said. When these things happen to me, I have definitely used appeasement to try to take some of the sting off of my words. A lot of times I will accidentally say something that I regret saying, and to try to make up for that, I will try to agree with that other person to take some of the meanness out of what I said that maybe upset them or something like that. I think that this comes up a lot with parents, where you get angry, or you are trying to get them to allow you to do something, and appeasement can often times be what you use to get what you want for a lot of people. Overall, I find this concept to be pretty interesting, and I am curious to see how it becomes relevant in some of the topics that we are studying right now.

Social Appeasement

While appeasement is used politically as a method to avoid war or conflict, it is also a tactic used socially to keep the peace with a family member or friend. For example, when I was young, my brother and I would constantly fight. Being the older sibling, he always thought he could just take or use my things without asking. While in the beginning I would put up a fight, I'd eventually just give in and let him keep one of my beanie babies, stuffed animals, or other toys. I didn't want to get in a screaming fight with him anymore and this one tiny little gesture could prevent just that. Of course, doing so only caused him to want more and more of my belongings so in retrospect, maybe that wasn't the best idea. So overall, appeasement solves conflicts socially in the same way that it does politically, by simply keeping the peace.

Appeasement and Family

There have been quite a few times when I have tried to appease someone in order to avoid further conflict. I have had numerous clashes with my parents over time, many of them ending with one of us giving up some ground on an issue. For example, my parents will often start thinking of increasing our (that is, my brother, my sister and I) regular chores. They will say that we are not doing enough around the house and that we often forget to do something. Consequently, my siblings and I will work extra hard for a few weeks and offer to help with other tasks whenever we can. Our parents will usually refrain from pursuing increasing our chores, and are satisfied enough to let the matter drop.
However, my parents are not the only ones who I have to appease sometimes. My younger cousins Jasper and Jones can be quite a handful at times. In particular, Jones is forever making demands of various things. When told "No!" he usually whines "But I want it!" and then has a tantrum. Often, I find myself just giving him whatever he wants in hopes that he will go bug someone else. Unfortunately, that is rarely what happens.

Appeasement

Sometimes my mom will say something that I completely disagree with when she drives me home from school. When I vocalize my opinion, she will try to shut me down and only say her idea. The car ride is only 10 minutes and I do not want her to follow me into my room to talk about topics I do not like, so after a few minutes I say that 'she won'. However, sometimes she likes to continue to talk about why she is right even after, which is why appeasement does not work very effectively with my mother. It is almost counter-productive.

Extra Credit Op

Who doesn't love extra credit? More important question: who doesn't love looking at pictures of Hitler as a bowling pin?

As an extra credit homework assignment, you can choose to go to either this site or this one and write a short paragraph analyzing the rhetoric and effectiveness of one piece of propaganda featured therein. Do these posters bear a resemblance to the ones who investigated in our study of the first world war? Has the rhetoric changed? Also – who's producing these posters and does that appear to have an effect on the message or tone?


[Due on the blog by 7pm Thursday, March 5th]

Adolf Hitler - Adams

This article I found from Time.com is a very opinionated piece. The author acknowledges not being a professional historian, but her points are convincing and very strong. Over the course of the article, she addresses many things and these have furthered my thinking on Hitler's rise to power. First, as we saw in the video of Hitler's speech in class, it is clear that his presence and speaking are powerful, especially for a man of his intentions. He had a great charm and like we decided after watching that video in class, if you saw that with no prior knowledge, you would believe and want to support this man. We have no learned quite so much on the resistance to Hitler. The author asks that question, was there any? While the others were too weak to fight Hitler's power, "Germany railed behind him." People of such high education and class backed Hitler's ideas, showing how great a influence these people have over the rest of society. These peoples are government officials, lawyers, doctors, scholars, and more. Through such strong descriptions of Hitler's effects on the world, she not only asks how one person could lead this whole movement, but how a person could do such things. She describes his childhood, but i guess that isn't really the big question. Yes, it is appalling to think about how bad a man Hitler is, but its more how did anyone let this happen. It could have been Germany's economic state and how Hitler offered a change and hope. Sound farmiliar? Obama was on a similar platform when on the path to power. We supported him because he offered a better future, which is something Hitler used to appeal to his audience. I agree with everything this author of the time's article talks about, even though her use of language is quite strong. 

In the article I found, the writer argues that democracy is the producer of this monster; Adolf Hitler. Ian Kershaw, the writer, believes Hitler got to such high power through democracy. Because he was able to get some power by doing it the "right" way, he took advantage of that and began to take more power into his own hands. Ian Kershaw also states that even today, skilled politicians know how to and go on to do do, manipulate the system into gaining higher status and more control. I agree with him on this. Although we don't see exactly what politicians do to get to where they are, I believe that some of them have the skill and know how to "trick" the system. In addition, one thing that separates today's politicians with Adolf Hitler, if and when they do manipulate the system, they do not want to kill or anihilate anyone.